Splitting a solution into two files

Is there any 'simple' way to move a table into it's own dedicated file? I have a table with container field data... photos, pdf files, etc, that I'd like to put in a file that isn't backed up as often so I can reduce the size of the backup, so this is a table and it's data. I haven't played around with it much yet, but it looks like I'll need to build the new file from scratch, change all the references, and import the data manually.

Moving the table and it's data is simple and does not even require FileMaker Advanced.

Leave your current file closed

Create a new FileMaker file.

Select Import Records from the File Menu

Select your original file

Select the table of container data as your Source Table

Select the "new table" option

The import will both create a new table and import all data.

If you have any calculations in calculation fields, auto-enter options, validation rules that reference data in another table or even the same table via a table occurrence (self join), then these calculations will be encapsulated as comments and you will need to manually edit them to resolve the issues that put them inside comments.

You then go to the relationship graph of your original file, find an occurrence of the original table and use the buttons at the bottom to highlight all table occurrences with the same data source table. Give them a unique contrasting Fill color.

Double click each in turn. For the first one, use Add FileMaker Data source to add an external data source reference where you select the new table in your new file. For the rest, select this same table as the new data source table. As the table occurrence is updated to reference an external data source, the text style of the name changes to italics.

Once you have updated all table occurrences for this table, you should be done.

There is an Export Records option to a type of FileMaker. You might consider this. I don’t recall the images (are they embedded?) as these should also “export”. Make sure you have found all the records. IIRC, calculations and summary fields become the value type (text, number, etc.)

...putting a period at the end of this discussion, in case anyone refers to it in the future, I ultimately decided that the "external storage" options for the container field are all I needed for backup purposes, and some apparent limitations creating relationships between tables in different files were more complication than I needed.